Exceptional Jedi: Chiaroscuro Vision
by WindySilver
Summary: Late 19 BBY (from soon after the rise of the Empire to c. a couple of weeks before AN droid Journal Entry 1). A metal being, having already gotten its sentience prematurely, is still being built. FFM 2015 July 31st.


I remember hearing voices. Whispers, words, curses. Clattering, hammering, clicking. I did not see anything at first. Then I got a bit of vision, but everything I saw was amorphous. Were my optics broken?

Then blurriness started to slowly disappear, but my vision was in chiaroscuro. I did not see well, but almost all the time I saw something. I saw a form going around me, adjusting things. There were some people visiting. Short conversations. Then the visiting forms almost always left.

The form which always stayed, my creator, rested regularly. I heard him cry in his sleep. I never made out the words, but I heard his distress. I wanted to get up and wake my creator up, but I couldn't move.

There was something wrong with my system.

My olfactory sensors indicated that there was something on my armor plates. Was it ethanol?

The ennui was horrible as I was slowly built. I wanted to do something, even say anything. But I lacked a vocabulator. I lacked many things, actually. I lacked decent optics and sensors. Once I managed to hear a word, "google", but I think the word was "goggle".

Did my creator not realize I knew what was going on already?

I knew there was something around me. I tried to grasp it, but I couldn't. Yet this somehow attracted the attention of my creator and the person by his side.  
"So what kind of thing is this 'Excelsior' project of yours?" I vaguely heard the visitor say in a foreign language, but I understood it perfectly.  
"I can't really explain, but it seems that the Force has been a catalyst to his sentience being formed this early", my creator told. His voice was oddly high for a normal male. Were his vocal cords broken or something?  
"You know, that what it just did was eldritch. Are you sure it's safe?"  
"He must be dauntless if he is to accompany me on facing the Empire."  
"You are not dauntless. You don't even have the nerve to even taste celery or carrots."  
"I was poisoned with them when I ate them last time. Gotta hate those bounty hunters."

My memory cut down at that point; I had been shut down. I think I saw a dream. I saw a hydra dancing skank. It was unfurling its skills to Rakata which all had wounds which were going to cicatrize. They were on a planet-bound ship. Then they hit the terminus. Some barbarians were talking about a legend of Force-users named Shit. No, wait, it was Sith. I think, at least. I heard them talking about the anagnorisis of the legend; their words about the hero were facetious.

Then the dream came to its ending. I woke up. I got flabbergasted right when my optics turned on - my vision was sharp! But it was not the most shocking thing.

Now I truly saw my creator. My creator... my creators was not male as I had first thought. My creator was a female! A quite pulchritudinous female, if I may say. The moon shone from behind her, and while fatigue and dark circles took part of her natural beauty away, curiosity twinkled in her eyes.

To me, after having a poor chiaroscuro vision, seeing something, seeing _someone_ in clear and sharp colors was something magnificent. Seeing her first time well, she seemed to me like an angel summoned from an elemental heaven.

We stayed silent, just looking eye to eye. I think she waited that I got used to my system. I suddenly noticed I had a vocabulator now. I wanted to test it right away.  
"Hello, my creator," I said slowly. I knew I wasn't fragile, but I wanted to be careful.  
"Hello, my partner. You can call me Shinga. What name do you want me to use of you?" my creator responded calmly.  
"Shinga," I registered the name. It was in my databank already, though. "I ask for your forgiveness for not having a name."  
"It is not my place to place judgement. I understand," Shinga told. She treated me with respect, I noticed. The Force flowed around us, curious of this situation. Was this humanoid woman in front of me some kind of Force entity?

No, she wasn't. That's what my databank told.

I got up carefully. My joints were very flexible. If I had not known that I was metal, I would've thought that I am flesh and blood like Shinga. I looked around myself, registering my surroundings. The air was not very moist; it seemed to me that the moisture of the air had been defenestrated. Or would've if there had been a window in this cave. There was just the entrance.

I looked at Shinga's armor. She was a woman, but for some reason her armor had a codpiece. Explanation was found from my databank once again. I noticed that my databank was filled with information, most of it under heavy security.

I tested my body. I moved well, like an assassin droid. But I knew Shinga did not intend me to be one.  
"Listen, Excelsior, what do you think of yourself?" Shinga asked me.  
"Excelsior?" I repeated. I had heard that name before the dream.  
"It was the code name I gave you," Shinga answered. She still waited for my answer.  
"I am sentient. I move as well as any assassin droid, but you don't want me for that. You don't want me to serve you. You want me to be your... partner?" I told.  
"Yes. I wish to have a partner when facing the Empire. Please, pick a name," Shinga told.

I thought carefully. What should I call myself?

The Force gave me my name.  
"Ascii. My name is Ascii," I announced.

 **/Star Wars (c) Lucasfilm, any characters you cannot find on Wookieepedia, Veledos, Veledosians and their language (c) Me/**


End file.
